


The Culinary Catastrophe

by DeeTheTeaDrinkingDragon



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: A semi-sequel to New Dreams, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Kind of post confession?, Mostly just silly antics and kids being soft, Rayllum, also Callum being a disaster, like post confession-ish, very mild angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 18:54:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18079028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeeTheTeaDrinkingDragon/pseuds/DeeTheTeaDrinkingDragon
Summary: “I swear, Callum, a single peep and I’ll throw you and those darn things to the first banther I see.”She had been joking, of course. Her style of humour had persisted through everything, and Callum had simply beamed back, kissed her on the hand and assured her that they were most necessary for their journey.After all, it would be nice to be able to prepare things to eat that weren’t solely berries all the time, right?---In which Callum tries his best to cook for Rayla.





	The Culinary Catastrophe

**Author's Note:**

> Hey Guys! It's me again!   
> Before you start, this is a relatively stand alone oneshot, and you don't need to have read my previous one (New Dreams) To know whats going on, but it is a sort of vague sequel to that and makes a couple of references back to that. You can decide whether you want to read that one first, or just dive right in with this one!   
> This is a lot more lighthearted than my last work, I figured we could do with something a bit more soft.  
> Special thanks again to Nay for proof reading. And a thank you to all of YOU for being so kind and supportive of my writing, both on tumblr and over here!!   
> Hope you enjoy! <3

About a week and a half had passed since they had left the safety of Aeslen’s Tower. And though the anxiety of entering towns lingered in both their minds, it seemed necessary, and hard to avoid the further east they travelled together.

If there was one bright side, it was that had been surprisingly easy, they had discovered, to trade supplies for Callum’s art. He would take their requests, draw them, and return a few hours later to collect the supplies they needed. At one point, Callum had insisted they get some rudimentary cooking supplies. Rayla had only caved when he promised to carry them in his rucksack without complaint.

_“I swear, Callum, a single peep and I’ll throw you and those darn things to the first banther I see.”_

She had been joking, of course. Her style of humour had persisted through everything, and Callum had simply beamed back, kissed her on the hand and assured her that they were _most necessary_ for their journey.

After all, it would be nice to be able to prepare things to eat that weren’t solely berries all the time, right?

Callum inhaled slowly, clapping his hands together, a newfound determination found.

“Right, let’s see what we have to work with.”

He laid out his new belongings across the grass, a single pot, a few bowls, cooking utensils, all things he had bought about two days ago. And then, the various bizarre looking vegetables, herbs and sweet bread rolls that he had traded for in the market place earlier in the afternoon.

Zym chirped curiously up at him, head tilted to the side questioningly. The prince smiled back at the little dragon, beckoning him closer to scratch him between the horns. “Do you want to help me out, buddy? I want to do something nice for Rayla, since she takes such good care of the two of us, don’t you think?”

Zym’s tail wagged and he did a little bouncy dance on his toes as he regarded the boy with an excited chirp and big smile. Callum took that for an enthusiastic yes.

“Alright then. Here’s what I need you to do. I need you to keep Rayla distracted for me. Do you think you can do that? She’s down by the river at the moment picking berries. See if you can keep her there for a little while longer, alright?”

The dragon blinked back at him with big inquisitive eyes, cooing.  Then, seeming to understand his new task, he yipped again, did a little twirl, and bounded off in the direction Rayla had set off earlier.

Callum watched the tiny dragon disappear through the trees with a smile. Rayla wasn’t too far from here, so Zym would be fine to trot over to her by himself. Rayla had determined this area to be particularly safe, and she was only on the other side of the small thicket of trees. She rarely strayed too far away. It made her anxious, he knew, to leave him and Zym alone for too long. He didn’t blame her. Xadia was a dangerous place for a lone human prince and a baby dragon.

Satisfied, Callum returned his attention back to the various roots and vegetables laid out before him. What could he make with these? He didn’t exactly have much… Or well _any_ cooking experience.  All the castle chefs had taken care of that back in Katolis, and he had been too young to really recall the memories of his mother’s home cooking before she had married the king. He raised a hand slowly to scratch his chin, frowning slightly as he took it all in.

Alright, so what dish seemed like it would be easy to make, and hard to mess up? Maybe some kind of vegetable soup? That would certainly pair well with the bread…

_‘Right. Let’s try it.’_ He thought to himself. _‘After all, cooking is like an art form. That’s what people say. It’ll be easy!’_

_\---_

It was not easy. Oh no, not at all. That had been a deeply misguided thought.

He had no idea what he was doing, awkwardly slicing and dicing the ingredients. (He had set aside half, just as a precaution, and he had been glad he did.) He had nearly caught his fingers a few panicked times, and hissed under his breath whenever the knife slipped and got too close to his skin. The boy managed to catch the end of his finger at one point, but only just slightly, yelping in surprise as he lurched it instinctively to his mouth. It wasn’t very deep, but stung sharply as he pulled it away. Rayla would tease him for that later, he was sure.

 At least if he lost a finger or two, he wouldn’t have to worry about hiding his hands in villages any more, he humoured himself darkly.

Not long after his minor injury, he had managed to chop the remaining vegetables up, and he awkwardly plonked them into the boiling water, watching them simmer for a while. He pursed his lips. Alright. Now what? It didn’t exactly look very soup like.

He stared at the mix, hands on his knees for a few minutes. How did this work? He squinted focusing on it as hard as he could. Maybe if he willed it hard enough, it would just… _become_ soup.

Or, maybe it needed some of the softer vegetables?

Callum strained to remember what one of the stall owners had said about one of the particular vegetables he had bought, a strange purple cauliflower looking thing, with curly blue leaves. She had said something about it adding texture to any dish. He peered over at the simmering pot of water.

Seemed like it could do with some texture.

He clumsily chopped about half of the strange plant up, and then without a second thought, dropped the diced pieces in. The split second after they left his palms, he suddenly realised, that maybe, this wasn’t a good idea. He wasn’t sure why. But a tiny voice in the back of his mind was chiding him for adding the plant without thinking first.

As it turned out, these voices were right. As soon as they hit the water, it began to froth wildly out of control, overflowing. He jerked back in panic.

“Oh, no, no no no!” He scrambled to find the lid and jammed it on top “Stop that, now, please-!” He held the pot lid down as hard as he could against the building pressure, steam hissing as it escaped through the cracks.

It was fine, this was fine, he could salvage this. He was an artist, he could dress it up, make it at least _look_ alright-

He felt the pressure against the pot lid subsiding and he sighed relieved, taking a few more seconds to steel his nerves before he slowly lifted it an inch to peek. Alright. It didn’t look so bad. In fact, it was actually starting to look more, well, vaguely, like a soup.

Nervously, he lifted the lid entirely and gave the mix a stir. The steam wafted a little closer to him, an earthy savoury smell. Not unpleasant. He dared himself to test it.

Mistake. The soup scalded his tongue and he squawked in surprise. He couldn’t focus on the taste, only the horrid sensation of all his taste buds screaming at him in pain. This was not exactly panning out how he had planned.

He huffed slightly as he reached over irritably for his water skin to drink from. On the bright side, it looked like it would be ready to serve soon. He sprinkled a little garnish over the top, and a pride swelled in his chest momentarily. Regardless of the setbacks, he had done it. By himself! Of course he had, he was a creator of things, magic, art, now he could add master chef in the making to his list of talents!

Well, maybe not quite yet. But one day.

His pride was interrupted by a familiar voice from behind him.

“Zym _pushed me in the river!_ ”

“H-He what?!” Callum rose to his feet in alarm, any attention on his ‘masterpiece’ completely discarded in that moment. “Are you okay? What happened?”

There was a fire in Rayla’s eyes as she stomped out of the treeline. Zym was hurtling towards Callum and curled around his legs, half cowering. As she approached, he took in more of the furious, drenched elf, still squeezing water from her hair. She softened a little at his question as he jogged over to meet her, leaving a sheepish Zym curled up by the campfire.

“I’m fine, it wasn’t very deep. But I lost all the moonberries downstream.” Callum gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze.

“You sure you’re alright?” His eyes were full and soft with concern. 

She laughed softly, brushing him off with a small wave. “Callum come on, you know me. I’ve faced worse.” She swept the hair from his face and pressed her forehead against his. “But it’s sweet of you to worry.”

Callum finally cracked a gentle smile when he pulled away, his fingers laced into her own.

“Well, fear not, my dear Rayla! For though you may have lost our berry supply, I have been working on a surprise for you, and,-”

“Callum.”

“-Dinner will be served shortly-“

“ _Callum.”_

“Huh?”

Rayla raised a hand, her finger pointing behind him, a bemused expression on her face. “It’s uh… It’s burning.”

“W-What?” He whirled around in panic, and lo and behold, the pot was frothing madly, and black smoke was rising from it.

_‘Oh no,’_ thought Callum.

_‘Oh jeez,’_ thought Rayla.

_‘Help,’_ the pot would have probably thought, if pots could think.

Callum dived for the pot in frantic panic. Zym squeaked as he jumped aside, and Callum tore the pot from the heat, hissing as the hot metal and boiling liquid burnt at his fingers. It slowed to a simmer, but the fumes continued, and were enough to make Callum cough and splutter.

“Callum are you okay?” Rayla began to approach the second she had heard his noise of distress but slowed slightly as he raised a hand to wave her back.

“Don’t come any closer! …I think it might be toxic.” She threw him a puzzled look, unable to tell if he was joking or not. Then she snickered under her breath. And then she began to laugh. She began to laugh so hard she nearly doubled over, supporting herself with her hands on her knees.

“Well I’m glad one of us is finding this funny.” Callum huffed, pulling himself away from the pot and brushing his still stinging hands on his shirt. It took Rayla a moment to recover, wiping the tears from her eyes with a flick of her wrist.

“Aw…. My Sad Prince is now a Mad Prince.” Rayla watched the corner of Callum’s lip twitch as he fought back a smile.  

But Rayla’s smile softened his face and he sighed defeated. “Your Sad Prince is only a Mad Prince because he’s ruined dinner.” He waved a hand gesturing to the mess he had left.

“Oh it’s not so bad.” She sauntered closer and rested an elbow on his shoulder. She tilted her head to the side a little to regard the scene. “It’s uh…. It could have gone worse.”

“Could have gone a lot better too.” Callum sighed pursing his lips.

“Maybe it doesn’t taste as bad as it looks?” Rayla bargained, taking a few steps towards the pot and hunkered down next to it, giving the mix a tentative stir.

“Careful, it might be so bad it kills you on the spot.” Callum warned as Rayla begun to raise the spoon to her lips. She snorted and gave a humoured glance back at the fidgety prince standing a few metres away. She could tell he had meant it as a joke but the tremble in his voice didn’t exactly fill her with much confidence.

Well, he was half right.

The gruel tasted like molten charcoal if it had been fished out of a swamp and salted to within an inch of its existence. Rayla tried not to pull a face reflective of how she felt, and swallowed, shuddering. She turned very slowly to look over her shoulder at a Callum, with his arms crossed expectantly. His eyes searched hers for a moment.

“It’s not…. That bad….” Rayla grinned painfully.

It didn’t seem to fool him however, as Callum’s face didn’t falter from exasperation. “Rayla you don’t need to spare my feelings. It’s clearly terrible.”

Zym bounded over curiously and gave the pot a sniff, before his little face scrunched up in disgust and he shuddered.

“See! Even Zym thinks so!” Callum gestured to the baby dragon who was now trotting over towards the prince.

“….Yeah, no, you’re right. I’m sorry. It’s pretty inedible.”  

Callum seemed at least a little relieved, his shoulders relaxing. “Alright good, I was worried you were going to insist it was fine and we were going to have to eat it.”

Rayla laughed, and he smiled back fondly. “Yeah, fair enough. I don’t think we can eat this. I’m sorry, Callum, you gave it a good shot.”

 

\---

 

Scrubbing the pot clean was a task easier said than done.

Callum quietly hoped that the cremation of his creation wouldn’t poison the local water supply for any unfortunate animals or other magical creatures who happened upon the river. He scrubbed harder, his knuckles beginning to raw, as frustration rose in his chest.

This had been such a disaster.

It had, almost literally, blown up in his face. And even if it hadn’t caught fire when it had, it still probably wouldn’t have come out as he had hoped. Not to mention he had inadvertently sent the poor elf tumbling into a river by telling Zym to distract her…

Rayla deserved better than this.

“Uh… Callum? If you keep scrubbing like that you’re gonna lose your knuckles.”

Callum flinched slightly, jarring away from his thoughts. He felt her approach slowly, firewood in her arms, which she set aside as she took a seat by him.

“Are you trying to scrub a hole through the metal? Because you’re probably going to at this rate.” She quipped with a lopsided smile.

He stopped his assault on the pot, and raised his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. It was quiet for a moment, and he could feel Rayla’s eyes on him.

“Rayla… what am I doing?”

She scooted a little closer to him. “I don’t know, Callum. What _are_ you doing?” All her playful banter had subsided for now, and her tone was more soft and questioning. She placed an arm around Callum’s shoulders gently. “Because like… You know you don’t have to try and impress me or anything, right?”

“I know, I know I just.” Callum inhaled slowly, and half turned to face her. “I wanted to do something nice for you.”

She blinked back in surprise.

“It’s just, you’re always looking out for us, and foraging and keeping us alive. Even when we feel safe, you’re on edge, and honestly I don’t blame you after…” He trailed off looking away. He could feel a twitch of tension in the fingers on his shoulder. Her other hand absentmindedly found its way to her side, brushing over it with her fingers, where weeks ago she had been gravely injured by a Sunfire elf guard. It was true that since then she had been walking on eggshells at every moment, anticipating another fight.

“But… You shouldn’t have to carry that weight alone. And I guess… I just wanted to do something to make you happy. To remind you things aren’t always going to be so bad.”

“They’re not bad right now.” She replied gently. His heart skipped and he felt the heat rise to his cheeks as Rayla’s hand found its way to his face, her fingers brushing gently against his skin, and she leant over to plant a kiss on his cheek. Then, she shifted, and rose to her feet, reaching out her hands for Callum’s. “Now come on. I’ll help you clear this up, and then we’ll try this dinner thing again. Together.”

 

\---

 

Callum had to admit that cooking together was both easier, and much more fun than by himself. It seemed that Rayla had a way of just making everything in his life so much dynamic, and working together with her felt as natural as breathing. He was thankful she was there. She seemed to have much better knowledge than he did of the various things he had bought at the market, what flavours would probably work well together, and how to properly prepare and chop them without risk to his hands.

“You need your hands, for drawing and magic, we can’t have bad things happening to them, can we?” She had grinned as she guided him through the process.

By the time the second attempt at a soup was ready, the sun had begun the set.

“Wait!” Callum shot to his feet in alarm, startling Rayla into nearly knocking the pot off the fire. He whirled around to dash to his bag, pulling something out of it.

“What are you-?”

“Stay there for a minute!” And with that he was sprinting into the small thicket carrying something bundled in his arms.

Rayla shared a quizzical look with Zym, the dragon momentarily disturbed from his chasing of little bugs in the grass. “Now what is he doing?”

Zym replied with a confused chirp, tilting his head to the side, before returning to pouncing through the grass.

Callum returned to a Rayla sitting cross-legged on the grass in front of two bowls of soup, her brow furrowed. He was grinning from ear to ear, hands tucked behind his back.

“Alright, what are you up to? What’s with that smile?”

“Why don’t you follow me and find out?”

Rayla raised an eyebrow, then shook her head, clambering to her feet, soup in hand. “Alright fine but you’re carrying your own soup.”

He complied, before leading her by the hand into the trees, followed close behind by a curious Zym.

“Alright, don’t get too excited, but… ta-da!” He gestured excitedly to a clearing in the trees with a tree stump and…

Rayla stifled a laugh.

Callum had draped his cloak over the stump as though it were a table cloth.

“Oh wow, you are such a dork.”  

 Callum pouted playfully at her. “Oh come on, it was the best I could do! I’d treat you to a candlelit dinner with music, 3 courses, if I could! But you’ve seen how much of a disaster I am when it comes to this. Also, I didn’t have any candles. Probably for the best, I’d find a way to burn the forest down.” He led the way to the makeshift table, gesturing politely for her to take a seat first.

“Wow, what a gentleman” She snickered. “Are you not going to pull my chair out for me?”

He laughed. “I would if we had chairs!”

She sat down on the soft grass at the foot of the stump scooting as close as she could, and placed down her bowl. The tree was lumpy, but it served its purpose. And she couldn’t help but feel a warmth in her chest at how hard Callum had tried to make this evening special. He regarded her softly from across their ‘table’.

As the last flickers of light faded over the mountains, they enjoyed their meal under the starlight. The soup might have been relatively average, but it was something they had made together, and that was more than enough for the two of them as their laughter faded into the night.


End file.
